The Importance Of Images In Your Digital Marketing

You may have noticed that images play an important role in digital marketing. But are you also aware of the reasons why images in digital marketing are so important? Are you convinced enough of the benefits of images to make the extra effort and assure that all your content includes (enough) images?

And even if you are aware of the importance of images, are you sure you know which type of images you should use with your content?

The truth is: not just every image does the trick.

When we get asked whether we accept guest posts (if you are interested: we do accept guest posts, but only if they meet our requirements), I always make clear that we want some images to publish with the post. And I am not talking about stock photos.

Why?

Because stock photos may look nice on the surface and maybe even help to structure the post. But stock photos don't add value to an article. They never give additional information, most of the time the image in the stock photo is only vaguely related to the topic of the post.

So what am I talking about? What are great images for your online content?

Are you REALLY asking that? Use your brain! Can't think of anything? Here are some ideas:

Screenshots: Always perfect to show what you mean or add information. It can bee screenshots of tools you mention, screenshots that illustrate a process, screenshots from statistics or websites,…

Quotes: If you have someone famous or an expert talking about your topic and agreeing with your point: Make an image with a quote on it.

Memes: Why not let your audience smile while consuming your content. A Meme can well be what people will remember.

Social media images for the social networks that you are using: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter – make sure you provide images with the right dimensions – and don't forget the text overlay for Pinterest.

Photos from what you are writing about

Illustrations

These are just to give you an idea. For each post and story that you tell, there are great ways to include valuable images into the content

I admit, coming up with several images for your content seems to be quite a lot of work – why should you do it? Here are some facts and statistics, to give you solid proof that it is worth to invest the time to create or look up some awesome images for your digital marketing:

1. Keep your reader's attention

I already hinted at the fact, that images help you to structure the content – but there is more to it.

Eye-tracking software proves that internet users pay closer attention to information in images. Images provide valuable fixpoints in the content. And if they are related to the actual topic and content they help your audience to skim the content and see in an instant whether the information is useful – or not.

3. Get more social shares

There are several reasons why a piece of content without any images does not get as many social shares as content with images. It all starts with the „need" for images in some social networks. But there is more to it.

Tweets with images get 150% percent more retweets and a lot more engagement than tweets without images. And people like me know that. I will not tweet your content if you don't provide any image to go with the tweet because I know that it is more or less worthless to tweet content without an image.

And we haven't even been talking about some special types of images like Infographics, which are "liked" and shared on social media 3 times as often than any other type of content.

4. Get more views to your content

And it does not end with the social shares. Your articles will get a ton more attention if you include images. Of course, some of this is due to getting more social shares – but here it is in numbers: Articles with images get 94% more views!

5. Earn trust with your audience

Let us be honest: Digital marketing is not all about blogging, creating posts, engaging and getting it shared. In the end, we all want to sell something online. And images can help you to make the sales!

Consumers love images. Images create trust and give a look and feel of the product they are about to buy.

In fact, 67% of consumers claim that the quality of a product image is very important for them in the process of selecting and purchasing a product.

And it is not only worth the time you need to create the images. In reality, not adding images to your content will kill a lot of the digital marketing success that you could have with your content if you had more valuable images in your content.

Images are no longer an add-on – they are a must for any type of digital marketing content!